In Episode 23, Pete Massiello and Laurie LeBlanc talk with iTech Solutions’ Amal MacDonald about the industry trends and challenges we are seeing with IBM i security.
iTech Solutions - for all of your IBM i System needs
iTech Solutions - for all of your IBM i System needs
Laurie LeBlanc, iTech Solutions
Let’s face it — 2020 hasn’t been the most stellar year for a lot of companies. There is still uncertainty about what will happen COVID-19 and the rest of the year. As a result, some companies choose to hold on to their cash and not make capital purchases. Others have frozen their budgets.
With the end of life for the popular E4D coming on December 31, 2020, many IBM i shops face Extended Support. This support is limited in scope. You can only get a contract for 12 months, and there are no guarantees. IBM Extended Support is better than IBM’s no option, but it’s not the best solution.
If you’re one of these companies struggling to navigate budget constraints in 2020, we have a suggestion: financing. If you’re not worried today, but you want to hold on to your cash, financing is also a fit for you. Do you refresh your hardware on a regular three to four-year cadence? Financing will save you money.
Patrick Nip
Almost three decades ago, back in 1997, IBM announced the flagship 9337 Disk Array Subsystem, a rack-mount disk unit that offers 1,084 MB to 33.55 GB of DASD for the AS/400 9406 Models B, D, E, and F as well as AS/400 Advanced System Model. Back in the early ’80s, I engaged in a benchmark of the 9337 Disk Subsystem on an enterprise AS/400 against the EMC Symmetric system in Rochester, Minnesota. I also presented RAID technology at a local user group meeting, explaining how to protect the data on the 9337 storage for the AS/400 with RAID 5 technology.
We have come a long way in storage for the Power System. In addition to internal hard disk drives (HDDs), there are Solid State Drives (SSDs), Non-Volatile Memory express (NVMe) drives, and the external IBM FlashSystems with all NVMe storage option. Gone are the days when AS/400 internal storage was usually the first choice in achieving the best performance. This blog discusses various IBM storage options for POWER9 and highlights the cost difference of deploying different storage options on a FlashSystem fiber attached to a POWER9.
